The Quad-City Times reports on the possibility of Amtrak service being expanded in the state (emphasis mine):
Officials throughout Illinois have been invited to discuss such an expansion during a meeting to be hosted Tuesday by Amtrak president Alex Kummant and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
[…] The Tuesday summit, scheduled to take place in a refurbished Amtrak station in downtown Champaign, is an attempt to build on the train ridership increases Illinois has seen in recent years.
Along with the potential for adding service to the Quad-Cities, the meeting will address an ongoing study looking at the feasibility of providing Amtrak service to Rockford. The talks also will touch on the prospect of adding a Peoria stop to Amtrak’s offerings.
Even though this is highly speculative right now, it’s nice to know that it’s at least on the radar. There was just a letter to the editor today from a Peorian who would like to see Amtrak service from Peoria again — I’ll bet there are a lot of people who feel that way. And since the “River Station” (actually the Rock Island Depot) is vacant, it could become a depot once again, this time for Amtrak — a perfect addition to Peoria’s downtown renaissance.
Hat tip: David Jordan (via PeoriaRails Yahoo! Group).
I would love to have Amtrak available in Peoria! With high gas prices and ridiculous airport security, it seems like the right time for train travel to become more popular again.
Count me in.
Count me in.
And you can take my link off. I’m just holding on to the page for all the links I have on it.
I’m a car nut, I hate having to follow others’ timetables, and I /still/ want to see Amtrak come to Peoria. I can’t imagine how nice it would be for those people who don’t mind mass transit to start with.
CJ,
do you know who we can contact to beg, “please bring us rail! please bring us rail! please please please!”?
I hate making the drive to Chicago to visit my parents. Always awful traffic. I’d take Amtrack in a second, for everything but Christmas, and enjoy a nice book on the way!
As far as I know, the River Station will be re-opening soon and Martini’s is still in the building as well. Have to find another spot. It would be great to have service out of Peoria again. I can’t believe it’s taken so long to even re-consider the possibilty. Look how many Bradley students would use it to get home too.
If rail service comes back to Peoria, it belongs in the old Rock Island Depot (“River Station”). It was the abandonment of this building – and downtown – that doomed Rock Island service years ago, and contributed to the demise of the Amtrak “Prairie Marksman” service. The biggest problem, of course, is that we have City leadership stuck in the antiquated 1960’s highway mentality. If they ever wake up to the fact that we are in the 21st. century, and people do not enjoy expensive, unpleasant and time-wasting car trips, maybe we will make some progress, but we have a long way to go. Before the year is out Bloomington-Normal will have 10 – count ’em – 10 trains a day.
I’m in, my kids and husband too! My brother and his wife, who live in NYC and would totally love to come to Peoria by train, put their votes in too.
Dude, for now, just connect us to Bloomington Normal! We could train there, then to Chicago. And hello, how many folks that work for Cat would totally love a Peoria/B-N run? Or Bradley students who want to use the ISU library (vs. BU’s crappy library).
I promise to plan my summer vacation with the kids next year to Amtrak if they would PLEASE bring rail service here. I know my kids would be all for this. And my husband certainly hates driving vacations.
I’m with Eyebrows. Can we start a letter writing campaign to Durbin? SOmeone?
Really the train doesn’t seem that great to me. If your going to chicago with multiple people it is more expensive. And it doesn’t look to save in travel time. The only benefit is not having to drive yourself. But there are some benefits to driving yourself. Thats where departure times would make a difference too. Although in certain situations it be worth the extra money and time. Like to be able to drink at sporting event in chicago and not have to worry about driving home. Now if this was a high speed train. No question I would be in on that.
C.J. your posts are the most informative-well done.
I stand firmly behind not having an Amtrak here for many reasons, but here is just a few. 1. I like Peoria for being Peoria, and we don’t need it. 2. Pollution 3. The interstate program-Upgrade 74-has cleared up travel routes. 4. Drifters 5. Peoria will turn into a Chicago.
HOOLIGAN WROTE – “I stand firmly behind not having an Amtrak here for many reasons, but here is just a few.
1. I like Peoria for being Peoria, and we don’t need it. ”
Peoria has done without it since 1981 (and did without it when we had it in 1980-1981 🙂 so your point is well-taken. Kind of like the trail proponents thinking they HAVE to fill the six-mile gap between Pioneer Park and the riverfront, despite the harm it is doing to Carver Lumber and the economic development the Kellar Branch surely would have sparked had its future been secure all of those years since 1984. However, Amtrak service would put Peoria on the map and it would be great for tourism.
2. Pollution
Diesel-powered freight and passenger trains are less pollutants for the capacity they the provide as compared to buses, automobiles and commercial airliners. Peoria hasn’t seen regular steam since 1955.
3. The interstate program-Upgrade 74-has cleared up travel routes.
Irrelevant. We’re talking about intercity passenger rail and I-74’s reconstruction is for local driving safety and capacity expansion.
4. Drifters
I’m sure Bloomington-Normal and Springfield are worried about this in regards to the two additional roundtrips that will be added at the end of thi smonth 🙂
5. Peoria will turn into a Chicago.
Did Bloomington-Normal or Springfield do this? If Peoria’s population jumps from 118,000 to 3 million because of Amtrak then I for one will agree with this one 🙂